Britannicus

From: "will stackman" profwlll@yahoo.com

Subject: Quicktake - "Britannicus" by Jean Racine, translator C.H.Sisson

Date:Wed, Jan 24, 2007 10:56 PM

Quicktake on BRITANNICUS

     Robert Woodruff's final exercise for the ART as its Artistic Director is a surprisingly coherent modern dress production of Jean Racine's seldom seen "Britannicus"--if you basically ignore the titillating dumbshow in the shadows stage left and right and finally upstage. While the text provides all the information needed for the drama, the director seems to feel the audience won't get understand how decadent things are unless they see Nero taking a shower before the action while two minor characters have a quickie on the set center stage and his mother finishes dressing on the other side of the set ignored by a man in a robe on the bed nearby. C.H,Sisson's servicable prose translation is well-acted in prime-time drama style by an experienced New York and rep theatre cast, which includes Adrianne Krstansky from the Brandeis faculty as Albina, Agrippina's confidant. The poetic cast of the original--which is in rhymed couplets--is large missing but not essential to the drama

     Joan McIntosh acts up a storm as Agrippina, Nero's manipulative mother, the center of the drama from first to last. Alfredo Narisco is her dissolute son, ready to live up to the huge motto at the back of the stage; "Empire creates its own reality," the clearest expression of the director's intent. The title character is played rather monochromatically by Emerson grad Kevin O'Donnell, while his fiance Junia, the focus of the rivalry between him and his step half-brother the emperor, is done by boyish Merritt Janson from the Institute, who has the better part and deserves at least one decent costume. John Serrios plays Burrhus, Nero's Praetorian military adviser supplied by Agrippina, who's ultimately unable to control his Emperor while David Wilson Barnes is the duplicitous Narcissus, who pretends to befriend Britannicus while working for all the more powerful members of the court. He and Krstansky have a thing going. The man on the bed, who's never heard from, is Pallas, Nero's tutor, played by Douglas Cochrane.His character never actually appears in the original

     The historically minded will note that Seneca, Nero's chief political advisor is missing from the cast, though he is mentioned. Racine probably thought that the recent death of Mazarin, Louis XIV's eminence gris, made any attempt to include such a role politically unwise. "Britannicus" was intended as a morality play for the Sun King; on today's stage it becomes a dynastic thriller, a taut drama--the script of course maintains the unities--which doesn't need the multimedia signposts which clutter this production. Incidentally, Nero's current wife, Octavia, Britannicus' sister, done byMegan Roth, doesn't say a word--she's also an added presence--does get to sing a couple of arias--in French probably.

    The entire show is miked since the stage is cleared to the walls, the set is predictably techno, and the lighting grid looms overhead and out over the orchestra. Video projection plays a peripheral and only occasionally distracting role in the show. The costume plot is modern and indicative, and would be appropriate for any daytime soap. The result is more coherent that most recent ART efforts and the cast manages to do the play quite professionally despite the technical distractions.

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"Britannicus" by Jean Racine, Jan. 20 - Feb. 11

American Repertory Theatre in Loeb Auditorium

64 Brattle, Harvard Sq. (617) 547 - 8300
A R T